Chapter 17
Helena woke to sunlight through the gap in the curtains and the weight of Caitlin lying against her side, stirring but not quite awake.
The light was much too bright for early morning and she lay still for a while without reaching for her phone, just letting the room come back into focus around her.
She was sore, pleasantly and thoroughly.
It had been a very, very good night indeed.
She turned her head to look at Caitlin...
dark hair loose and messy against the white pillow, makeup smudged, but the necklace, their necklace, still there.
The bathrobe belt was still knotted to the bedframe where they’d left it.
The silk scarf was on the nightstand. Caitlin’s dress was draped over the armchair.
Helena couldn’t help smiling to herself at the silent testament to the night they’d had.
Caitlin stirred against her again and turned her head, and when her eyes opened a slow smile spread across her face that had nothing about the dominant partner and everything about the submissive lover about it.
“Hey,” she said.
“Morning, Gatinha.” Helena smiled back. “How are you feeling?”
“Comprehensively excellent.” Caitlin stretched carefully and winced. “I was worried at one point I’d popped a rib.”
“When I…?”
Caitlin leaned over and kissed her. “Yeah, when you… did that. That was naughty.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Caitlin grinned. “It really did, Minha Dona. It really did.” She collapsed theatrically back down onto the pillow. “What time is it?”
“Late.”
Caitlin glanced at the curtains and Helena saw realisation dawn. “Brunch?”
“Will have been and gone, I think.”
“Good. I’m not moving.”
Helena laughed, and they lay there for a few minutes more, neither of them feeling any compulsion to be anywhere.
Helena thought about all the mornings she’d lain awake in S?o Paulo thinking about this woman and they seemed very far away now, something that had happened to a slightly less happy and contented version of herself.
This, she thought, is more perfect than I could have dared to hope.
Eventually Caitlin’s stomach expressed a firm view on the matter of food, and Caitlin laughed into the pillow.
“Room service?” Helena suggested.
“Please. Coffee.” Caitlin laughed again. “Urgently.”
***
Helena phoned down for food and, most importantly, coffee. While she was on the phone Caitlin pulled on one of the bathrobes and looked around the room with her hands on her hips, conducting a satisfied audit.
“My belt’s still on the headboard.”
“I know. I’ll unpick it before they get here with the food.”
Caitlin retrieved the silk scarf from the nightstand, folded it, and put it on the side.
“Mimosas?” she asked.
“It’s still not long after ten.”
“It’s the morning after the last night of the conference. Medicinal mimosas are expected.” Caitlin shook her head in mock disappointment. “Minha Dona, you told me I could leave the orders to you.”
Helena grinned. “I’ll forgive a moment of insolence, Gatinha.
Just this once.” She rang back down and added the mimosas.
Then she went to unpick the bathrobe belt from the bedframe, which took a minute of genuine effort before it came loose, and when she handed it back Caitlin grinned and tied it around her bathrobe.
“Thank you, Minha Dona.”
“You’re very welcome, Gatinha.”
They sat in the comfy chairs near the window with the curtains fully open, Miami bright and sprawling below them and the ocean a magnificent backdrop.
Caitlin had her feet tucked under her the way she’d had them that first night in the library bar, the necklace catching the morning light, and she looked, Helena thought, completely happy.
The version of her that nobody in the firm got to see. The force of nature at rest.
Breakfast arrived. They ate, and drank the coffee and the mimosas, and for quite some time didn’t feel the need to say much. Helena let the silence run because she knew what she was going to ask and was waiting for the moment to feel right.
When they were most of the way through and Caitlin was looking out at the view with her coffee held in both hands, Helena put hers down.
“Don’t go to Barbados,” she said.
Caitlin turned. She put her own cup down carefully and gave Helena her full attention. Her expression was hard to read but Helena went with intrigued mixed with what she hoped she’d read correctly as pleased.
“Come to S?o Paulo with me for your holiday instead.” Helena kept her voice even.
She was more nervous than the situation probably warranted…
except that it seemed as if a lot hinged on Caitlin’s answer.
“My flight is at eight. I’ll be home Friday morning.
If you could come sometime on Friday then we’d get all weekend.
I have to work Monday to Wednesday, sorry, a client thing, but then I can take Thursday and Friday off and we can go to my family’s beach house.
I’m already going with Mariana and her friends next weekend, but you and me could have a couple of extra days, just us.
” She hesitated, realising she was babbling a little, then continued.
“You could explore S?o Paulo while I’m at work.
You can stay with me. But if you want time to yourself I understand, if you want to go to Barbados still then… ”
“Minha Dona,” Caitlin interrupted.
“Yes, Gatinha?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.” A grin spread across Caitlin’s face. “I’d love to come to S?o Paulo and stay with you instead.”
“You would?”
Caitlin nodded enthusiastically. “I was wondering when you’d ask! I didn’t want to just invite myself, but I could tell you were thinking it when I told you about Barbados.”
“That obvious?”
“To me.” She reached out and squeezed Helena’s hand. “Yes. Of course yes. Obviously yes. I was hoping you would.”
Helena realised after a moment that she was grinning like a lunatic. Caitlin in my life, in my world… I cannot wait.
***
“Right,” Caitlin said once they’d finished their breakfast, in the tone that Helena knew from working with her meant logistics. “I need to call my travel agent. She’s going to hate me.”
“She’ll manage.”
“She’ll charge me a fortune, but she knows she can because she’s good.” Caitlin glanced across at her. “Give me a minute with the call? It’s going to be fairly excruciating and you don’t need to witness it.”
“I’ll go and make myself look like a human being.” Helena nodded towards the bathroom. “Take your time.”
She spent ten or so minutes in there, brushed her teeth, washed her face, looked at herself in the mirror and decided she didn’t mind what she saw. When she came back out Caitlin was off the phone, sitting at the table with an expression of self-satisfaction.
“Well?”
“She found me a flight. I was going via Houston anyway, so she’s rerouted the onward leg. I’ll go home then head back to the airport first thing tomorrow morning. Flight will get to S?o Paulo just after five tomorrow afternoon.”
“I’ll come and get you from the airport.”
“You really don’t have to, I can get a taxi…”
“I’m coming to get you from the airport, Gatinha. End of discussion.”
“Is that my Dona giving me a command?” Caitlin’s expression had broken into a broad grin. It suited her.
“If it needs to be,” Helena grinned back. “Gatinha,” she added for good measure.
***
They talked for a long time after that, planning as ideas came to them. Packing was easy… Caitlin could adapt her Barbados wardrobe to S?o Paulo, particularly with an evening at home before the second leg of her flight. A few more city clothes, keep the swimwear in. Simple.
Caitlin was full of questions: would Helena’s parents be at the beach house? (No) How long was the drive there? (a couple of hours) Did Helena have a pool at her apartment? (Yes) And so on.
It was somewhere in the middle of talking about what would happen when Mariana and her friends arrived at the beach house for the Friday night that Helena dropped, as subtly as she could, the subject of who else would be there into the conversation.
“Juliana will be at the beach house.”
She watched Caitlin hear it, process it, and then the flicker of her understanding what Helena meant.
“Juliana as in that Juliana?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok.”
“She’s Mariana’s closest friend. She’s been coming for years, long before she and I started anything.
It would be stranger if she wasn’t there with their other friends.
” Helena held her gaze. “You and I have talked about what she and I are. Me and her agreed we both need to date other people. I’ll talk to her before you and her meet and make sure she knows, so there’s no awkwardness.
We both know that if one of us meets someone it stops, we’re both cool with that. ”
Caitlin was quiet for a moment. “I know,” she said. “I trust you. The… I suppose there’s jealousy, even if I have no right to be jealous, but also… I’m curious to meet a woman who could make you want to be her submissive.”
“You and her will get on great. She’s the least likely person I know to get socially awkward.”
Caitlin smiled. “It’s going to be fun. All of it.” She reached across to take Helena’s hand. “I’m really excited to see your life. Much, much better than Barbados.”
After a few moments, Helena said, “I suppose we should both get packed. Your flight isn’t long away, is it?”
“Long enough. But yeah.”
“Shower first?” Helena said.
Caitlin broke into a smile. “Shower. Very important we’re both clean…”
The bathroom was marble with serious water pressure, and it filled with steam almost the moment that Helena turned the shower on.
She let Caitlin take the bathrobe from her shoulders, and they stepped under the spray together, standing there for a few minutes letting the hot water cascade over them.
After a while Caitlin took the body wash and washed Helena’s back, slowly, her hands moving across her skin, caressing, touching, along her back, across her shoulders, down her arms. Helena closed her eyes and let herself be taken care of.
When the soap was rinsed away and there was nothing left between them but hot water and wet skin, Caitlin kissed her, deep and slow, her tongue flicking languidly against Helena’s, and then she pulled back with a mischievous smile.
“Stand there,” she whispered, positioning Helena with her back against the wall, still under the hot falling water.
Caitlin began to lower herself, deliberately, to her knees on the wet marble floor and looked up at Helena through the steam.
“Minha Dona.”
Helena reached a hand down and stroked Caitlin’s wet hair. “Gatinha.”
She pulled Caitlin’s head towards her, parting her legs, and gasped as Caitlin’s tongue found her.